How We Travel for Cheap: A Reasonable Points Strategy

Do you go on Instagram and hear of these people who fly first class around the world “for free” and wonder how they do it. I did too. We had a few points here and there we collected, but I knew that there had to be a better way to make use of my spend to help save on my favorite activity – travel. After a lot of research, trial and error, and mistakes, I finally found a strategy that works for our family. We are not the family that flies first class everywhere. We are not the family that pays for everything with points. We are a family that found a system that works for us and fits into our busy lives. Thankfully, this strategy has afforded us the luxury to travel to some incredible places while saving a significant amount of money. Check out our points journey and strategy, with tips to help you create your own.

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Our Points Journey

The very first point card we ever got was a United Credit Card for a small bonus. We fly a lot between Newark and San Francisco. When United purchased Continental, it became the way to fly back and forth. We quickly discovered if we put all our purchases on the United Card, then we could fly my mom or dad back and forth once a year on points for $95 a year. And for years, it worked. With that card we booked four of us to Argentina on points, and a few years later booked first class tickets to Costa Rica for our 10^th wedding anniversary on points.

A few years later, we added the Alaska Airlines Card when we tried to switch to solely flying Alaska to fly to New Jersey. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have as many options in flights and we often found that while we like flying Alaska better, we used United more. But we still used the card for our free checked bags, our companion pass discount, and occasionally find points deals.

In 2020, I started to follow people who share “travel hacking” content and understand the points strategy better. I decided to engage a points coach, Julia from Geobreeze Travel, and she helped me create a points strategy that would work for our family.

I will say, her strategy, while helping me get enough points to get our family of four to France, turned out to be a bit too aggressive for our family and my ability to mange my finances. While I understand that applying for more cards is the best way to the bonuses and more points, I just realized I could not mentally keep track of all of the cards and when to cancel them.

But I still wanted to make sure to offset the costs of our trips with points. Finally, we figured out a strategy that works for us that gives us enough points to offset a lot of costs, while also making it manageable in our day to day lives.

Current Strategy

• We have two main cards we use on a daily basis: We have found we can keep track of the differences in two cards. We know which cards give us the most points for each category and use those accordingly.
• Our main cards provide flexible points: Our first card only gave us United Miles. But when we switched to cards with flexible miles, we realized that we could transfer points to different flight partners and hotel partners. This allowed us to have a bank of points we could transfer to the partner that would work best to help us with a particular trip.
• We still use our Airline/Hotel Specific Cards: The airline/hotel specific cards provide us with benefits we use if we book the flight/hotel with that card. We keep those cards and use them so we can take advantage of those benefits. Specifically United lets us board Group 2, which is important since we usually fly carry on only.

What Cards We Use and Why

• Chase Sapphire Preferred: We use this on all eating/dining out, streaming services and online groceries. This card gives us 3x points on all these categories where we spend way too much money. Chase has United as a transfer partner, so we use those points often to fly home, fly my family here, or any place where United flies. $95 a year annual fee
• Chase United Credit Card: We use this card to exclusively book United flights if we are flying points or cash. This will allow us to fly with a free checked bag and board in group 2, and a discount on any food or wi-fi we purchase on the flight. Also, every 5 years, it reimburses usage for TSA Pre or Global Entry. $95 a year.
• Chase Business Ink: I got this card for a 100K bonus. I only use this for my business expenses to keep everything neat, but I get 3x points on travel when I book business travel which helps to add to our points pool. And I can pool it with my Chase Preferred points. No Annual Fee.
• Alaska Bank of America Card: We use this card whenever we are booking Alaska or Hawaiian flights. We get 3x points on an Alaska flight booked. The card also gives us a companion ticket for $99+ taxes and fees a year, and lets us fly with a checked bag. $75 a year annual fee.
• CapitalOne Venture X Card: This is our workhorse card. This card gives you 2x points on everything, and extra points on other categories. We use this for almost everything. This card has better hotel partners and international airline transfer partners. It also gives us the Priority Pass which gives us access to lounges. To be honest, the lounge access is better internationally than domestically, but it is a nice perk when you have a long layover and want to rest and eat in-between. It also provides $300 annual credit for booking travel through the Capital One travel portal, and 10,000 bonus miles a year. $375 annual fee.

Sample Trips We Booked

This doesn’t count all the flights we booked at the last minute on points due to an emergency, the points we used for the occasional 1- or 2-night hotel stay, or points we used to help offset the cost of the rental cars in expensive markets.

Tips

• Pay Off Your Balance in Full Every Month – This strategy ONLY works if you pay off your balance every month. If you are carrying a balance, you are paying interest and that negates any benefit you get.
• Whatever you can pay for your card, do! – Any bills I can charge to my card, I do. Any kid’s activities, costumes to buy for recital, groceries, gas, Starbucks runs with the kiddos, all paid for with a credit card. Again, I never spend more than I can pay off that month. I still budget. But I pay through a credit card so I get my points.

• Pick Cards with Flexible Points – Flexible Points lets you transfer to partners that work for the trip you are planning. For us, while we transfer a lot of points to United, we have been able to transfer to hotels where that is where we will get the savings and/or international airlines when flying out of the US.
• Pick Cards that Fit your Lifestyle – Where do you spend the most? Does the card you’re interested in give you a bonus for that category. Pick the cards that fit where your family spends the money so you get the most out of your annual fee.
• Don’t feel Like you need to optimize every purchase – If you have the mental bandwidth to do that, that’s great! If you want to travel more and that’s your priority to pay as little as possible, that is also great! But sometimes, it’s all too much. I work a full-time job, am a mom, handle the family’s finances, and run a travel blog. I cannot keep up with optimizing every purchase as well.
• Engage your partner – In our household I handle the finances and my husband just assumes we have the money unless I tell him we don’t. I had to explain why I was using this credit card strategy and make it as easy as possible for him to follow. As long as I made it simple, he was willing to play along. He has two cards in his wallet. I make sure they are the most effective cards for our budget.
• Always Get your Card from a Referral from a Friend Or a Link from your favorite creator – These cards will often give you and your friend referral bonus points for signing up. With our Chase Preferred, I referred by husband and we both got an extra 20K points. If you have a friend who has the card, ask them to send you the referral link so you can get the sign-up bonus AND get you and your friend extra points. Don’t have a friend with the card? Points content creators earn a commission at no cost to you when you sign up though their link. Support their work by signing up there. Don’t have a friend with the card or a creator you know? You can use my referral code and I’ll happily take the extra miles 😊 (Note: I do not get a commission with the credit cards; this is simply the friends/family referral link)

If you are responsible with your budget and know how much you spend, using a credit card will provide you and your family the opportunity to explore the world so much more than you may today. For our family it has not only given us the ability to travel more, but to also stay connected with our family on the opposite coast. Without all these points, I wonder how much we would be able to do all we do. I wish one day to be proactive enough to get four first class tickets to Europe on points, but I also know that for less points I can get four economy tickets and then have points for a hotel. It’s all a balance on where you want to spend it and how much effort you want to put in. I hope you can find some great help here. But, I also want to share some other great Points Creators that I have learned from:

• Julia at GeoBreeze Travel
• Laura and Danny at Latinos with Passports
• Mackenszie with Travel Mackenzie
• Angel from Penny Wise Traveler
• Stacy from Points for Family Travel

Good luck with your points collecting and traveling adventures!

Edited by: SKS